We can see now that Mitt is serious about keeping himself as a viable Republican either in this election cycle or out into the future (2012).

 Josh Romney, one of former Gov. Mitt Romney’s five sons, says it’s “possible” his father may rejoin the race for the White House, as a vice presidential candidate or as the Republican Party’s standard-bearer if the campaign of Sen. John McCain falters.

The prompting for this comes from the possibility that McCain could still implode over his NYT-induced sex scandal. Allahpundit puts it tactfully as this:

If the Brooks nightmare scenario materializes and someone proves that Maverick was shtupping Vicki Iseman in return for lobbyist favors, then yeah, he might drop out. He could survive in the sense of limping along to November, but with the myth of “straight talk” exploded in so spectacular a fashion he’d be fatally wounded. That would create a vacuum into which Huck, presumably, would move - unless someone blocked him.

So Mitt’s son comes out acting as a non-official surrogate and floats this idea of Mitt either coming to swoop back in as ‘the conservative alternative’ (haven’t we already heard this?) if McCain hits the wall, or perhaps be a vice presidential nominee.

Personally, I think the latter is the larger news in this story, even though no one seems to really be focusing on it. I don’t think that McCain is going anywhere, if someone had evidence of a tryst we probably would have seen it by now, and this story allows Romney to stay in the news.

Stories like this are also trickling in:

The quest to win the presidency at an age when he would be too old to be a commercial airline pilot or even a judge in some states has already led Mr. McCain to adopt a more grueling campaign schedule, and a more vigorous style, than several of his younger rivals. Now that Mr. McCain is the presumptive Republican nominee, political analysts say, his age will most likely factor into his selection of a running mate.

Some suggested Mr. McCain might want to tap a younger running mate to balance the ticket, particularly if he were to face a young opponent like Mr. Obama, 46. Others said his age would simply heighten his need to choose somebody whom voters would feel comfortable with as president should anything happen to him. (Not to be morbid, but eight vice presidents have succeeded presidents who died in office.)

Mr. McCain said in a recent interview that he had not even settled on how the vice presidential selection process would work, let alone whom it might select, but added, “We all know that the highest priority is someone who can take your place.”

Romney is a healthy 60 and he has hollywood hair, so how could Straight Talk go wrong by choosing him? We’ll see if this goes anywhere…

Others on this: Cassy Fiano |

This entry was posted on Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 5:08 pm and is filed under 2008 Race, Conservatism, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.